Later that year the Enterprise made official first contact with the Ferengi, and later was hijacked by a group of Bynars who took the starship to their homeworld to use the starship’s large computer core to backup their planetary computer. (TNGepisodes: "The Last Outpost", "11001001")

On stardate 41590.8 the Enterprise visited Tigan, under the invitation of ChancellorLomac, unfortunately Lomac was knocked from power shortly after the Enterprise arrived and the new administration was less happy to have the Federation visit the planet so fired a gravimetric pulse at the Enterprise. The pulse generated a gravimetric wave which pushed the Enterprise across the galaxy at high velocities. The Enterprise was only able to break free and return to Tigan to rescue its away team by using the slingshot effect to jump back in time and re-enter orbit before they could be fired on. (TNGcomic: "History Lesson")

Later, the Enterprise transported AmbassadorFenton Lewis to the planet, Lorca, to stop a Ferengi takeover of the planet. An away team led by Captain Picard was lost, and a second one, led by Commander Riker, was sent down to the planet. Lieutenant Geordi La Forge was placed in command of the Enterprise. Both away teams were successful in their missions and the Ferengi left the planet. (TNGnovel: Masks)

Towards the end of 2366 the Borg returned to Federation space and the Enterprise was dispatched to try and hold off their vessel while Starfleet mustered its forces at Wolf 359. In an apparent stroke of fortune the Borg seemed fixated in pursuing the Enterprise so that they might achieve their goal of assimilating Captain Picard. For some time the Enterprise was able to hide from the Borg in the Paulson Nebula however the Borg eventually drove the ship out using magnetometric guided charges. Soon there after the Borg succeeded in capturing Picard and assimilating him, giving him the designation Locutus.

The crew of the Enterprise attempted to stop the Borg by modifying their starship's deflector dish to fire a high energy pulse. Unfortunately, Picard was aware of this plan and the Borg had already adapted. As the Enterprise fell behind, the Cube (endowed with Picard's knowledge of Starfleet defenses) proceeded to Earth, easily defeating the fleet of thirty nine Starfleet vessels awaiting them.

Later that year, on stardate 44614.6, while Dr Leah Brahms visited the ship, the Enterprise became the temporary adopted mother of a space-borne lifeform. (TNGepisode: "Galaxy's Child")

Towards the end of the year the Enterprise led an armada of ships to create a tachyon detection grid to prevent cloaked Romulan ships delivering supplies to factions in the Klingon civil war. (TNGepisode: "Redemption")

In mid-2368 the Enterprise was shortly captured by Romulans from the experimental warbird IRW Syrinx. The Romulans took the Enterprise to the quarantined world Hermeticus II, where the crew rediscovered the USS Independence, which was lost 30 years earlier. Hermeticus II was revealed being a starship inhabited by the Ambimorph, who saved the crew of the Enterprise and destroyed the Romulan ship. (TNGnovel: The Romulan Prize)

On stardate 45494.2, the Satarrans also attempted to take control of the Enterprise with somewhat more success, using the Enterprise to destroy a Lysian destroyer before the crew of the Enterprise, whom the Satarran agent on board had induced a state of amnesia in, regained their memories and retook control of the ship. (TNGepisode: "Conundrum")

Early in the year 2369, the Enterprise was charged with transporting Kommandant Ghud to trial on the planet Wyath. Due to strict rules in Wyath law on the timing of trials Ghud had to arrive in a tight schedule, so when the shuttlecraft Goddard failed to make its rendezvous with the Enterprise the starship had to continue onto Wyath regardless. Fortunately Ghud volunteered his engineering expertise to help find the shuttle; devising a system which triangulated the sensors of the Enterprise, Starbase 172 and the sensor array on Wyath to pinpoint the unique materials the shuttle crew had in their possession - Worf's baldric, Ro Laren's earring and Geordi La Forge's VISOR. Upon detecting the shuttle, Commander Riker was dispatched in another shuttle to retrieve the away team, while the Enterprise continued on schedule for Wyath. (TNGcomic: "Light of the Day")

After the incident at Cymkoe IVAdmiralReddreck ordered the Enterprise to Morassia to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a Federation Scientist Dr. Vi Hyunh-Foertsch. The crew managed to reveal illegal activities of one of the planet's inhabitants. Furthermore they managed to get a trace on the Garidian fugitives' trail for the Fifth Scroll an ancient artifact that could change Garidian politics forever.

After the first wave of the Romulan invasion, another hostile force crossed the Neutral Zone once more destroying Federation outposts. The Enterprise intercepted one of the alien ships and discovered that the Chodak were behind the second attack.

First Contact with the Chodak was established on their former homeworld Allanor, where Captain Picard was able to locate the position of the Unity Device. The Enterprise arrived in the Z'Tarnis Nebula to make sure the ancient weapon would not fall into wrong hands. Soon after that Captain Picard was able to send the Unity Device into another dimension. (TNGvideo game: A Final Unity)

While on patrol, the Enterprise-D was contacted by Montgomery Scott aboard the Goddard, who requested access to their library computer. While aboard in guest quarters, Scott accessed logs from the original Enterprise crew, including Spock's calculations for time travel aboard a B'rel-classKlingon bird-of-prey. After departing the Enterprise under false authorization, Scott's vessel, nicknamed the Bounty 2 utilized the Arhennius star to slingshot back in time, with the Enterprise following, where they discovered an alternate timeline, mistakenly caused by Scott when he rescued James T. Kirk from the USS Enterprise-B before he was drawn into the Nexus.

The Enterprise met the D'Zidran, commanded by that timeline's Tal who was advised by Guinan. The D'Zidran put out an Alliance fleet-wide alert and located Scott and Kirk aboard the Wisdom, under the watch of Supreme Arbiter of the AllianceSarek. The Enterprise was able to avoid the threat of the Borg Collective, who now controlled much of the Alpha Quadrant including the Sol system, and with the assistance of Guinan, determined that they needed to return Kirk to the Nexus. The Enterprise transported Kirk back moments before a fleet of Borg cubes destroyed the Enterprise, but the timeline corrected itself and everyone awoke back in the normal flow of space-time without knowledge of the events in the alternate timeline. (Star Treknovel: Engines of Destiny)

On stardate 47310.2. Enterprise issues a warp embargo throughout Starfleet and other governments, based on findings by Hekaran astrophysicists. This resulted in a local velocity limit of warp factor 5, bringing daily spacefaring and commute somewhat back to the 22nd century; major starship redesigns were made, including the Intrepid-class vessels. For this reason and rifts generated in areas of space, "environmentally friendly" provisions were made. For example, the Enterprise-D, in the following year, before her loss, reduced power output while orbiting Amargosa. Internal shipboard lights were lowered or altogether deactivated, allowing solar light to shine through decks with the windows, reflected from the nearby observatory. (TNGepisode: "Force of Nature" TNGmovie & novelization: Generations)

On stardate 47457.1, the Enterprise was sent to the Devolin system to try and recovered the wreckage of the USS Pegasus before the Romulans succeed in achieving the same goal. Racing against the IRW Terix the Enterprise located the Pegasus but was forced to use an illegal prototype interphasic cloaking device the Pegasus had been the test bed for to escape an asteroid the Enterprise had been trapped in. (TNGepisode: "The Pegasus")

The Enterprise under attack from the remote controlled starship

On stardate 47630.1 the Enterprise was assigned to map the Bandor system which had recently fallen under Federation jurisdiction. In that remote location it was attacked by an unidentified hybrid starship, made from Federation, Romulan and Borg components, in the first attack the ship took out the Enterprise's warp and impulse engines and reduced shields to twenty-four percent, as well as causing crew injuries, near fatal ones to Councilor Troi. The attacker then departed for a short time. When it returned Troi had recovered enough to warn the ship had no crew, it was remote controlled. With this knowledge the crew were able to find a solution, creating an inter-receptive network blocking the subspace communications controlling the aggressor. Cut off from its controllers the vessel self destructed. The Enterprise called in at a nearby Starbase following this incident. (TNGcomic: "Strategy")

After the disappearance of the Voyager, the Enterprise participated in the search for the missing Starfleet vessel in the Badlands. (DS9comic: "Vacation's Over")

Duras sisters attack.

On stardate 48650.1 the Enterprise-D met its end during a confrontation with a Klingon Bird-of-Prey under command of the Duras sisters. The sisters had previously captured Geordi La Forge and while under their captivity had Tolian Soran (a scientist they were working with) modify La Forge's VISOR to transmit a video stream to them. Upon his return to the Enterprise they used this data to discover the Enterprise's shield frequencies and adjusted their disruptor frequencies accordingly to fire through the Enterprise's shields. The damage they inflicted eventually caused a warp core breach, fortunately, not only did the Enterprise destroy the bird of prey they were using, the Cha'Joh, but the crew also managed to evacuate to the saucer section and separate before the stardrive section exploded.

The Enterprise crashing into the atmosphere of Veridian III

The shock wave created by that explosion did however knock the saucer off course, causing it to crash land on the planet Veridian III below. Most of the crew survived but the Enterprise herself was not salvageable and a small group of Starfleet vessels arrived shortly after to retrieve the Enterprise's crew. (TNGmovie & novelization: Generations)

Commander Riker later revisited the crash site to head up a team to dismantle the remains of the ship, so that if and when the natives of Veridian IV ever achieved spaceflight and visited Veridian III they would not discover the crashed starship. After a Romulan attack, Riker activated the saucer's auto-destruct sequence, leading to the ship's final destruction. While the blast totally obliterated the surrounding area, Riker decided that it would be less harmful for explorers from Veridian IV to find a huge crater rather than the remains of the Enterprise-D. (TOSnovel: The Return)

Much of the Enterprise-D's crew later transferred to the new Sovereign-classUSS Enterprise-E. Morgan Bateson would reveal that the bridge science station and forward support struts have minor damage because they are from the wreckage of the Enterprise-D; the officer’s lounge table was also reclaimed from the Enterprise-D. Bateson had them installed, he said, because of these artifacts, the crew of the Enterprise-E would always know of the legacy of her predecessor. (TNGnovel: Ship of the Line)

In one alternate timeline, a Borg sphere sent from the future destroyed the Enterprise-D. As a result of the altered timeline Tasha Yar did not give birth to Sela and Martok only rose to the position of captain. Fortunately, the USS Premonition went back in time as well, and destroyed the Sphere, restoring the original timeline. (STvideo game: Armada)

In another alternative timeline, following the disappearance of the USS Enterprise-C, relations between the Federation and the Klingon Empire deteriorated into war. The Enterprise-D became the first Federation Galaxy-class warship. In 2366, the Enterprise-C reappeared through a temporal rift and encountered the Enterprise-D. It soon became clear that the Enterprise-C's disappearance had lead to the creation of this timeline so the Enterprise-D laid down cover fire to protect the Enterprise-C from attacking K'vort class Bird-of-Prey as she returned. As the Enterprise-D was verging on destruction the Enterprise-C returned back in time with the addition of Tasha Yar of the Enterprise-D, this Tasha was soon taken captive by Romulans and became the mother of the half Romulan Sela. (TNGepisodes: "Yesterday's Enterprise", "Redemption"; WizKidsmodule: Tactics)

In another alternate timeline, the Enterprise-D survived into 2378. The majority of the Enterprise's staff had moved on to other positions with many of the senior staff having been replaced by Soong Type Androids. Captain Picard took the Enterprise into the Romulan Neutral Zone following the receipt of a message from the long missing Data. The ship and crew were led to Iconia which had been colonized by the androids. In order to protect the innocents below the Enterprise was forced to engage the IRW Haakona in orbit of the planet; however, a peaceful resolution was obtained when the Iconian gateway technology was surrendered to all powers in the Alpha Quadrant. (TNGshort story: "Brave New World")

In the canon mirror universe, and other non-canon variations of the mirror universe published after Dark Mirror and the Deep Space Nine mirror universe episodes, the Terran Empire had fallen by the 24th century so the Enterprise-D did not have counterparts.

One of these Enterprises came was from a reality in which the Borg Collective had succeeded in conquering the Federation and much of the Alpha Quadrant by 2370. It was one of the last surviving ships and was likewise commanded by Riker. This version of Riker fired on the Curie as he did not want to return to his own reality. The Enterprise indigenous to that reality then fired on the Borg-infested Enterprise using minimal weapons. This began a chain reaction which resulted in its destruction due to the severe damage which it had suffered in its many engagements with the Borg. (TNGepisode: "Parallels")

In 2370, Crusher committed suicide after learning from Trelane that he was the only still living version of Jack Crusher in any universe. Picard succeeded him as captain and chose William T. Riker, who had recently been freed from a joint Romulan-Cardassian prison camp after eight years, as his first officer. (TNGnovel: Q-Squared)